, and then it is right to
fight it with the only weapon a poor man has to wield against a power
which possesses a hundred weapons,--and that's a strike. For example,
the smelters and casters in the Miantowona Iron Works are meanly
underpaid."

"What, have they struck?"

"There's a general strike threatened in the village; foundry-men,
spinners, and all."

"So much the worse for everybody! I did not suppose it was as bad
as that. What has become of Torrini?"

"The day after he left us he was taken on as forgeman at Dana's."

"I am glad Dana has got him!"

"At the meeting, last night, Torrini gave in his resignation as
secretary of the Association; being no longer a marble worker, he was
not qualified to serve."

"We unhorsed him, then?"

"Rather. I am half sorry, too."

"Richard," said Mr. Slocum, halting in one of his nervous walks up
and down the room, "you are the oddest composition of hardness and
softness I ever saw."

"Am I?"

"One moment you stand braced like a lion to fight the whole yard,
and the next moment you are pitying a miscreant who would have laid
your head open without the slightest compunction."

"Oh, I forgive him," said Richard. "I was a trifle hasty myself.
Margaret thinks so too."

"Much Margaret knows about it!"

"I was inconsiderate, to say the least. When a man picks up a tool
by the wrong end he must expect to get cut."

"You didn't have a choice."

"I shouldn't have touched Torrini. After discharging him and
finding him disposed to resist my order to leave the yard, I ought to
have called in a constable. Usually it is very hard to anger me; but
three or four times in my life I have been carried away by a devil of
a temper which I couldn't control, it seized me so unawares. That was
one of the times."

The mallets and chisels were executing a blithe staccato movement
in the yard below, and making the sparks dance. No one walking among
the diligent gangs, and observing the placid faces of the men as they
bent over their tasks, would have suspected that they were awaiting
the word that meant bread and meat and home to them.

As Richard passed through the shops, dropping a word to a workman
here and there, the man addressed looked up cheerfully and made a
furtive dab at the brown paper cap, and Richard returned the salute
smilingly; but he was sad within. "The foolish fellows," he said to
himself, "they are throwing away a full loaf and are likely to get
none at all." Gi